Experimental Demonstration of an Optical Filter Bank Multicarrier System With Index Modulation

The optical filter bank multicarrier (OFBMC) technique has emerged as a promising multicarrier solution in optical wireless communication systems due to its significantly lower out-of-band emissions. We propose and experimentally validate an intensity-modulation direct-detection OFBMC system with subcarrier index modulation (OFBMC-SIM) operating at a data rate of 45 Mbits/s. This approach not only enhances spectral efficiency but also improves the peak-to-average power ratio performance. Additionally, we design a near-optimal Transformer-based signal detector with a lower computational complexity. The effectiveness and superiority of the proposed OFBMC-SIM system are demonstrated through both simulation and experimental results conducted over a free-space link.